Anti-Transgendered thread in Chat

[countessmarkyabitch]

Started off as a vague question about what makes you feel like a woman, lots of people started mentioning transwomen, naturally. Has now turned into some posters stating that transwomen are just men and shouldn't be allowed use female things like toilets and rape crisis, pretty much anything.

I find this really offensive and have stopped engaging. My personal feminism encompasses women who were born in male bodies, and supports their struggle to be recognised as women. I also think they need the protection and help of feminists as a particularly at risk group.

Is this an unusual stance? Does anyone agree with me?

It is not true that women commit violence against women or men on a regular basis. 96% of violent offenders are men.

Men are a threat, both to other men and to women.

I understand Pilchard but being in a room with a man you don't know is not intrinsically unsafe.
Being in a room with a man who has been conditioned to think that he has an automatic right to rape a girl simply by the virtue that she's alone with him, that's the threat. That is what needs to change.

Men, intrinsically, are not a threat.
Accepting a trans woman into a ladies restroom (in our culture) is not a recipe for rape.
I accept that would be different in other cultures.

I don't think anyone is pressurising anyone into unwanted sex to be honest.

WidowWadman there really, really are.

If you want a really extreme example (and there are many, many lesser ones) there's a lesbian porn star who has been on the receiving end of incredible amounts of harrassment for not making porn with trans women porn actors. Lily Cade (NSFW, obviously, though this is her blogpost and not the full monty, as it were): www.lilycade.com/2014/06/why-i-went-to-war/

Erm

All the times I have experienced street harassment / unwanted sexual behaviour / etc it's been men that did it.

Women and girls don't imagine this stuff

And that's just in the UK, obviously it's worse in other parts of the world.

Most females have had a lot of shit off men from the moment they turned puberty. They have a right to feel something about that.

Or do we all have to pretend it doesn't happen when in fact it's wildly common.

"I understand Pilchard but being in a room with a man you don't know is not intrinsically unsafe.
Being in a room with a man who has been conditioned to think that he has an automatic right to rape a girl simply by the virtue that she's alone with him, that's the threat. That is what needs to change."

So you want women and girls to accept people with penises into their space, BEFORE society has changed to mean that people with penises aren't conditioned to treat women and girls in certain ways.

Right.

Hubert if you think that men aren't a threat to women then I can see why you have no problem with this issue.

I'm really glad you've managed to get this far in life with no experience of men's violence. I really hope it continues.

I don't like the idea that women and girls should feel forced to do things that are way outside their comfort zones in order to be "fair" to men.

I have never subscribed to the idea that women and girls should curtail their own freedoms to avoid the bogeyman. BUT I would never condemn a woman or girl who did that because that is what our society tells them they are supposed to do and in fact has all sorts of threats and scare stories for females who do not comply.

I would never discount anybody's experiences. I, like probably every woman in existence, have received sexual harassment from men. That can't drive me to see men as a threat. It drives me to see those particular men as stupid dangerous assholes.

Regarding the comment about deciding to transition to become black: Gender is arbitrary. Society has decided which attributes are considered feminine and which are considered masculine. We can rebel against them, choose not to accept them, challenge them etc because they are totally arbitrary.
The colour of your skin... not so arbitrary.

The fact is, you have a very very high chance of being raped or sexually assaulted in your lifetime. I have been raped more than once. There is also a very large chance that your rapist will face no consequences. That is the world we live in, pretending otherwise doesn't make sense.

So the fact that everyone with a vagina is called a woman is arbitrary?

I agree that this debate isn't about who uses toilets. The issue is that women's right to self-definition is being challenged. To make out that it is all about some silly women who don't want to share their loos with rapists is a way of dismissing the debate aroudn self-determination imo.

Sex is not arbitrary.

The idea that I have "chosen" to be female, that I had or have any say in the matter, and to disregard the fact that I've got a female reproductive system... It makes no sense.

In every country in the world the people in charge know what male and female are, and then things happen to the people based on that.

There is nothing arbitrary about it.

cailindana I have not managed that unfortunately. I have been at the receiving end of physical and sexual violence from men.
I refuse to let my experiences turn me into a victim that feels threatened by men. I can't see 'men' (as a general term) as a threat. If I did I'd feel like they'd won. Not going to happen.

The idea that sex is arbitrary, meaningless, a choice, when SO MUCH AWFUL STUFF is done to females all over the world because of it, just enrages me.

No, sex is not arbitrary.
Gender is arbitrary.

So Hubert, do you walk down dark streets with no fear? Or feel no fear when you're alone with a bunch of drunk men on a bus?

The men who physically and sexually assaulted you presumably didn't stop to check your gender before they did so, did they.

So much for arbitrary.

The MEN who hurt WOMEN have no trouble knowing which is which. But the people who want to try and stop it, aren't allowed to say which is which. So how the fuck do we identify the problem. Which is Male Violence. FGS. Getting annoyed now.

Are the two actually comparable though Cailindana? One is a delusion and the other a physiological reality. I'm not suggesting that this must be the experience of all transwomen but it must account for some. Are you suggesting that the experience of some transwomen to be a delusion too? (I don't know whether or not I think that by the way, I'm not transgender so I have no clue what it's like)

Gender is not arbitrary. Gender is taught to children who are of a particular sex at birth.

Sorry Badger I'm not following. What's a delusion and what's a physiological reality?

So Hubert because you personally don't want to see yourself as a victim and therefore have no trouble being alone / sharing space / whatever with any man (ever? even if he's being creepy?) - you think that all other women all over the world need to also behave that way irrespective of their experiences and/or social conditioning.

Men harm women.

Men harm other men.

Those are facts.

The vast vast majority of violence in the entire world is committed by men.

No amount of "I'm not letting them win" changes that.

I walk down dark streets with fear that somebody may mug me. I wouldn't say that I fear that person will be a man. I'm just as scared of a woman mugging me as a man mugging me. Same with the bus. I'm equally as worried sat next to a group of drunk women.

I'll be honest I've lost the direction of the thread a little. My mind is swimming with the differences between sex and gender, and how our language is limiting when trying to distinguish, and I'm unsure as to how anybody had insinuated that that you're not allowed to solve the problem of violence.

Sex is obviously not a choice.
But you can decide whether you identify as masculine of feminine. Of course that doesn't always result in a sex change operation or trans lifestyle.

If gender were arbitrary we'd have a situation where some babies with penises were called girls and some babies with vaginas were called boys.

But that doesn't happen unless there's a (very rare) intersex situation going on.

Gender is not arbitrary. It is part of your identity from day one and it is based on your genitalia.

It makes no sense for you to equally fear women Hubert. Because women commit a tiny 4% of the violence in the world.